Friday, January 16, 2009

Hope you're having a good Friday and the boss let's you go home early with a free ham ;)

Today's post isn't so much Linux and Unix-related as it is post-and-article related. Having been blogging for a good year or so, I've done my fair share of writing posts and putting together articles to try and redirect traffic to this minuscule speck on the web right here.

Now, I'm just as lazy as the next guy and (if it were possible) I'd have all my posts written by an artificial intelligence program that could take a few keywords, some sloppy thoughts and a general outline, and spit out a nice beefy post; replete with bizarre references to pop culture, interesting asides and a good dose of my own supposed sense of humor. Of course, I realize this is asking way too much (I think), and don't expect anything like it to ever be offered up for sale or show. At least, not any time soon.

One thing I find interesting, when checking out Markov-(and other algorithm)-basedarticle rewriters (or spinners) is that the only ones that work are the ones that require you to basically do the rewrite yourself. Essentially, you're being sold a text editor with a thesaurus built in.

I don't want to blast anybody who's out there giving this whole notion of unique content generation a shot (I keep thinking I might ;) and falling short. To me, the idiomatic and subtle nature of any language is such that merely replacing words and phrases (without fulling understanding the context in which the reside) is never going to get the job done. I think this would make for an interest project (although I must admit, the fact that 2 decades of professional language-specific word processing software still can't fix grammatical errors consistently or correctly, has me at a loss. ...for now).

In that vein, I won't reveal what free online article spinner I used to re-generate just one portion of a previous post we did on dealing with "argument list too long" errors. I kept it to the preamble, since, once we get into Unix/Linux-speak, most words are never replaced anyway. I think you'll agree that the outcome is pretty funny and/or reminds you of the many-too-many Internet-pharmacy/Viagra/Spanish-prisoner-scam emails you get every day :)

Here's the original version of that post's intro:

Here's a question that gets asked a lot (and, consequently, answered a lot ;) on the boards. How do you go about dealing with a situation in which you're trying to take care of some business on your Linux or Unix box and you get stopped with the "Argument list too long" error message? It's probably happened to all of us at some point, but it's fairly simple to avoid, and in more than one way. I'm almost positive, even though I know this stuff, that I'll get that error message again at some point in the future. My mind is a terrible thing ;)

The way I try to keep on top of avoiding that error (which, admittedly, isn't all that terrible, assuming its not a predicating factor in a script - like, you don't have any action is your script that might do something destructive if you don't check for errors) is a basic two-prong approach. First, I'll try to figure out what kind of limitations my system can stand. Secondly, I try to stick to some basic methods that guarantee I won't run into the issue no matter what my system's maximum argument length is. Of course, the second part obviates the first part, but I'm a curious guy (take that whatever way you want ;)

and here's the rewrite (set at 50% - midway between most unique and most readable). Enjoy at your own peril. I don't think some of the substitute words really exist ;)

Hey There,

Here's a question that gets asked a aggregation (and, consequently, answered a aggregation ;) on the boards. How do you go about handling with a situation in which you're trying to verify care of some business on your Linux or Unix box and you get stopped with the "Argument list too long" error message? It's belike happened to all of us at some point, but it's fairly simple to avoid, and in more than one way. I'm almost positive, even though I know this stuff, that I'll get that error message again at some point in the future. My mind is a intense thing ;)

The way I try to ready on top of avoiding that error (which, admittedly, isn't all that terrible, assuming its not a predicating factor in a script - like, you don't have some action is your script that might do something destructive if you don't analyse for errors) is a basic two-prong approach. First, I'll try to figure out what kind of limitations my system can stand. Secondly, I try to stick to some basic methods that guarantee I won't run into the issue no matter what my system's maximum argument length is. Of course, the second part obviates the prototypal part, but I'm a curious man (take that whatever way you want ;)

Cheers, and a relaxing weekend to you all,

, Mike

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